Wednesday, March 8, 2017

The Emancipation of Parvati Kadam

Parvati Kadam was affectionately known as my mother's dowry. As a very young bride she came down to Mumbai to live with her (much older) husband who worked in the BPT. She was trained by my maternal grandmother in her Bandra kitchen ... on wood, coal, kerosene wick, kerosene pump and gas stoves ... a skill set almost completely missing today. She would cook, clean and feed my gran's entire household and was soon a master of Parsi cuisine.

When my Mum married my Dad and moved to VT in 1968 she came along to help Mum and stayed on for the next 25 years. She was almost a second mum to me, she doted on me and packed my lunch and on rare days even came over to drop me to school. But this is not about how she took care of me but about how she ultimately took care of her own demons.

Very often she would come home to work in the mornings with a swollen face, black-eye or bruised arms. When I asked her she would say she had fallen at home. My mum used to get incredibly worked up and would tell her not to put up with this but to make a Police complaint and that mum would stand by her. Mr Kadam a by and large nice gent used to get a bit drunk once in a while and on those days he'd come home and toss her around. After much screaming by my mum she'd quietly reply that it was okay after all he was her 'maalak' (Marathi term for husband whose literal translation is owner)! This would incense my mother even more.

Over the years the beatings seemed to lessen especially as Mum had started her catering business (KFD Caterers) and Parvati was her strong right arm and Chief Cook. She was bringing home the bacon in sizable chunks.

Then one day Mr Kadam came to see my mum he must have been in his early 60s and he looked much the worse for the wear ... swollen faced he requested my mother to speak to Parvati. When my mother asked him to clarify he said she had been coming home and once a while whaling the tar out of him! He was most embarrassed at what the neighbours were saying about a wife beating her husband.

The back story to this was that as she got a little longer in the tooth and the business scaled up there would often be late night after late night with catering for 500 to a 1000 persons each day. At the end of the day there would be a tired lot of kitchen staff that would send out for something to fortify themselves with and the tipple of choice was Doctor Brandy. A couple of nips and she would go home by cab (courtesy Mum) ... and on arrival sometimes give it back to her husband with full interest.

My mother was least sympathetic and chortled with glee ... when she had finished laughing she told him it was simply payback for all he had done and that as a good Indian he should think of this as his karma.